Monday, June 19, 2006

Parshas Be'ha'alosecha: The Chashivus Of Limud HaTorah

In this week's parshas we read about Pesach Sheini. A few members of Klal Yisroel who did not partake in teh 1st korbon pesach came to Moshe with a ta'anah of "lama nigara". Rav Gedaliah Schorr (Ohr Gedalyahu Chelek Moadim Pesach Sheini) has a very interesting p'shat in their ta'anah.

Rav Schorr quotes a zohar that brings the following story. A child once met some Tanaim who were coming back from doing a pidyon shevuyim. The child accused them of not having read kriyas shema. The Tanaim answered that they were patur because of oseik b'mitzvah patur min hamitzvah. The child responded you might have been patur but I can still see on your faces that you didn't read shema. Rav Schorr explains this zohar that even if you are patur from a mitzvah, you are still missing out on not being able to perform that mitzvah. In fact the only reason HKBH put you in a matzav in which you were patur is because of your chisranos. If you didn't have any chisaron HKBH would have removed the petur and enabled you to perform the mitzvah. RAv Schorr goes on to explain that this idea especially applies to limud hatorah. Limud HaTorah is the ultimate form of serving HKBH. Granted there are times when other tzrachim or mitzvos come up which make you patur from learning. However, sof kol sof you are still missing out on the zechus of learning and you are affected. Furthermore, as we see from the zohar it is only cause of your chisronos that you were put in a situation where you became patur from learning.

Getting back to our parsha, these people involved in Pesach Sheini were tzaddikim. Because they were oseik b'mitzva acheres, they were patur from the 1st korbon pesach. However, they looked into their actions and couldn't discover in themselves any chisaron which would have caused HKBH to make them miss out on the 1st korbon pesach. Therefore they came to Moshe with the ta'anah of "lama nigara".